FOOD SECURITY

Preventing hunger a multi-faceted effort

On behalf of Care and Share Food Bank, I want to thank Sens. Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar for their recent support of the farm bill. In addition to food stamps, the bill funds several important emergency food assistance programs including The Emergency Food Assistance Program and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program. Without continued funding of these programs at the levels in the bill, thousands of working families, seniors and children in southern Colorado will need to rely even further on the already stretched resources of Care and Share.

Care and Share Food Bank, with warehouses in Pueblo and Colorado Springs, is only one piece of the puzzle necessary to address the very real problems of hunger and food insecurity in our area. While it is growing to help close the hunger gap, federal programs must keep pace as well.

In 2007, I took the Care and Share “Food Stamp Challenge.” For one week, I subsisted solely on the food I could purchase with $26 (the average individual allotment for food stamp recipients). This amounts to only $3.72 per day. It was a difficult week — lots of bread, potatoes, rice and water and no snacks, desserts or sodas. Although it was nice to lose four pounds, I certainly would not want to be on a diet that caused me to lose four pounds every week. Health studies have concluded that low-cost foods often lack the right balance of nutrition and over the long-term they can contribute to obesity.

In 2008, let us resolve as a community to support hunger relief efforts in southern Colorado. For those who may be suspicious of taxpayer-funded programs, consider that investment up front nourishes families enabling them to become self-sufficient.

Care and Share — a private nonprofit organization — would welcome your support as we work to end hunger in southern Colorado by bridging the gap between hunger and abundance. For more information, you can visit our Web site at www.careandshare.org or call 1-719-296-6995.

Richard G. Wood

Board member, Care and Share Food Bank

Colorado Springs

HIRING FELONS

Employers have right to protect customers, business

Daniel Kase needs to remember than an employer does not owe him a job, regardless of his experience (“Ex-felons suffer from legal discrimination,” Letters, Jan. 6). A criminal background is a good reason not to hire a person. To compare his plight with actual discrimination is degrading to those who have turned away due to race, handicap or age.

A criminal makes a choice to violate the law. Do not expect employers to hire you because you have paid your price to society. Because my business was recently burglarized, I do background checks and drug tests on employees. I must ensure the security of my business, employees and customers.

I have researched recidivism rates for career criminals. I am not talking about the one-time offender who does something stupid and learns from it, but the person who continues the life of criminal behavior.

Eighty percent re-offend. Even this number is statistically low, because criminals commit numerous crimes prior to arrest and conviction, leaving a long list of victims. Talk to any police officer, district attorney or judge, and they will tell you they spend their days arresting, convicting and sentencing the same people over and over again. There are very few ex-criminals; most are simply between arrests.

If Kase is truly rehabilitated, then society should applaud him and encourage him to keep trying, but I have yet to meet a business owner who has not been a victim of a criminal. Until society realizes that rehabilitation rarely works and comes to terms with locking criminals away, we will continue to be victimized.

Ken Sexton

Colorado Springs

WELL DONE

Managers, crews did good job on COSMIX project

With the completion of the COSMIX project, I want to compliment COSMIX management on both the execution of the project and their efforts to keep the public informed on progress and challenges.

Any project this big is bound to have problems and to cause significant disruption to our lives, but I believe disruption has been kept to a surprisingly small minimum. I traveled through the COSMIX work zones two or three times a day. I’ve been impressed at the steady and rapid progress made in each part of the project, and I appreciate that The Gazette and the TV news stations have published regular, accurate updates and warnings of closures and route changes.

Kudos to the planners with the foresight to plan for tomorrow’s traffic loads (not last year’s) and to the managers and workers who’ve executed the plan with skill and effectiveness.

Jim Campbell

Colorado Springs

SLANTED REPORT

Study comparing sentences used flawed method

The report, “Drug penalties harsher for blacks in county,” was terrible journalism (The Gazette, Jan. 7). Reporting on this unbalanced study set up readers to what amounted to divisive journalism.

Justice is meted out in percentages. The greater the crime, the greater the consequences. The items the study did not look at removed those elements of justice, leaving it unbalanced.

Does our justice system have problems? Yes. But it cannot and should not be changed to meet percentages rather it should be changed by percentages, i.e. removing what may be racist hotbeds still operating.

Bill McKenna

Colorado Springs